


The Affair of the Blanched Bibliomane

by pendrecarc



Category: Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 19:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendrecarc/pseuds/pendrecarc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The auction room was crowded with the royalty of the book world, but no-one present claimed any knowledge of Mr. D. Bredon. His sale had appeared out of nowhere, a lightning strike to the bibliophilic heart of London. Most attendees there were eager to buy, all were ready to gossip, and a few were there because they found the timing nothing short of suspicious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Affair of the Blanched Bibliomane

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tinx_r](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinx_r/gifts).



> For tinx_r, who enjoys stories about Peter from someone else's perspective. I hope this fits the bill!

Granted, the decline in book collecting was far from the most regrettable casualty of the depression, but Miss da Costa Greene reserved the right to mourn its passing. It was her passion and her livelihood, after all, and she missed the heady glee of the auctions and private sales leading up to the crash. Gone were the Kern sales, which had brought over $1,000 per lot on the American market; gone were the increasingly exorbitant sums paid out for the finest of items; gone were the ambitions of the wealthy American upstarts looking for a hobby and the jealous counter-attacks of the British institutions looking to keep what they regarded as their national birthright. She missed the thrill of the chase as much as anything, to be honest, and was simply spoiling for a good fight.

If money was in short supply, however, the passion of the true collector was not. The catalog for the Bredon sale had gone up only the week before, but it had been so well (and tastefully) publicized that even the economic depths had done little to keep an eager crowd from Sotheby’s.

She tucked one silk stocking-clad leg over the other, pulled off the satin gloves studded with seed pearls she’d purchased only that morning (depression or no depression, there was no point losing one’s enjoyment of the finer things), and cast a curious eye over the auction room.

It was crowded with the royalty of the book world. She was nearly the only woman (and easily the best-dressed, she noted with some pleasure) but far from the only American. She recognized representatives of academic institutions from Oxford to Harvard; agents beside herself from the American behemoths, men sent by Rosenwald and Houghton and Doheny; and, inevitably, the private British collectors, the sort of men who took their seats with such reserved self-assurance as to make their presence undeniably known. All greeted one another with the same cordial wariness. There was a general feeling that this single sale might do a great deal to reinvigorate the market, or at least the general enthusiasm for collecting. There was also an unmistakable air of mystery about the proceedings, and try as the participants might to cultivate an air of refined unconcern, no true book-collector could be anything but giddy at the prospect of collecting the items in this catalog or fascinated about the identity of the collection’s owner.

No-one present claimed any knowledge of Mr. D. Bredon. His sale had appeared out of nowhere, a lightning strike to the bibliophilic heart of London, with an extraordinarily fine range of incunabula selected with such care as to suggest both great passion and deep pockets. Yet they had evidently been collected in such secrecy that the name Bredon was entirely new to Sotheby’s lists.

She heard whispers of “ _Pseudonym_ ”, but no-one could clearly articulate why that might be necessary.

Bidding started off slow. The first several lots were nice little pieces, but nothing to catch the eye, just a few Parisian broadsides in passable condition that brought a flutter of offers and saw the gavel come down before the tension could rise. Her employer had not wired her any specific instructions—her years with the library had earned her a certain amount of trust and discretion—but she knew not to waste his time and considerable resources with these.

Then one of the auction-house staff ascended the platform with a slender volume held reverently in his gloved hands. Miss da Costa Greene was impressed as much by the gravity of his manner, the severestarched edges of his collar, and his dark good looks—where was Sotheby’s finding these people?—as by the item he held, and she sat a little straighter in appreciation. Then the auctioneer announced Lot 6, an excellent 1469 copy of the _Historia Naturalis_ , and the air in the room grew palpably thicker. And then the real fun began. She raised her card.

Bidding had just closed on a very respectable amount indeed, and in her employer’s favor, when the door at the back of the room opened to admit a latecomer. She turned slightly in her seat, then paused when she saw the shock of yellow hair. The man paused on the threshold, lifting a monocle to survey the room.

She smiled despite herself and turned back to the front. She might have known.

She heard Wimsey take one of the seats behind her, and she would have put him immediately out of her mind if it had not been for the auction attendant, who until then had given the impression of being too devoted to his duties to spare any attention for the audience. Yet, as he descended the platform, he sent a brief glance past her—straight at Wimsey—and she could have sworn it caught and held for a meaningful second.

Well, that was curious.

The offers came more briskly after that, though if anything it took longer for each of the lots to sell. Bid followed upon bid in great succession as interest grew greater and greater still. The afternoon wore on until a short interval was announced after Lot 30.

As most of those present began milling around, she turned in her seat. “I can’t say I’m surprised to see you here, Wimsey.”

He grinned at her. “It is all a bit in my line, isn’t it?”

“I should say so,” she replied. “You might have written the catalog yourself. But I don’t see you bidding on anything.”

He gave an unconcerned shrug. “Not exactly the climate for it. Who’s got the funds? Besides your employer, I mean. Three cheers for the Americans, keeping the game alive. No, I thought I’d just pop in and see what was what, catch up with the old crowd, that sort of thing. We’ve all got out of the habit a bit.”

“You always were the most bald-faced liar,” she said, answering his shrug with the smile she knew to be her sweetest and most predatory. “You’re here for No. 32.”

He grinned, if not more widely than before, then at least more slyly. “Aren’t we all?”

She unfolded her catalog. “ ‘Lot 32,’ ” she read in clear tones. “ ‘Galen, _De antidotis_. A 1489 translation from the Aldine Press. Impeccable condition.’ And, more importantly—though they clearly feel no need to say so—one of precisely two known extant copies of that printing.”

“So I hear.”

“And they also feel no need to tell us there was only thought to be one copy until the publication of this catalog, which I think begs the question—where on earth did this one come from?”

“You might ask that of the rest of them, too,” Wimsey pointed out. “No-one seems to know this Bredon chap. He had a good eye, though.”

“Yes,” she said, consideringly. “Nearly as good as yours, and with much the same preference in period and subject matter. Antidotes are also a bit in your line, aren’t they?”

“A man needs his hobbies.”

“And a good thing, too, or I’d be out of a job.”

“And we all thank God for men like your boss,” Wimsey replied. “It’s good to know someone’s still keeping the water warm.” For she had secured a round dozen of the lots thus far, and at impressive prices.

“There aren’t as many as there used to be,” she said, suddenly grave. “We’ve had a few nasty knocks. Poor old Huntington, back in ’27; the crash, of course; and then Grammercy just last month. He’ll be missed.”

“Indeed,” Wimsey said, rather noncommittally.

Book collectors loved little more than gossip. “I heard,” she pressed on, “that you were looking into that.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Grammercy. He was barely fifty, after all, and healthy as a horse. Odd thing for a man like that just to drop dead one afternoon. I’ve heard it said you’ve been nosing about the place.”

“People talk too much,” Wimsey said severely. “What’ve we come to, if a respectable family man can’t die in his own home without people talking?”

“But there _is_ something to talk about, surely. Wouldn’t you say it’s a little suspicious, the _De antidotis_ coming onto the market so soon after his death?”

Horace Grammercy had owned the other extant copy of the Aldine _De antidotis_ , the one that had widely been believed to be unique until the Bredon sale was announced. Miss Greene’s interests tended toward later periods, but she had been familiar with the piece, and on Grammercy’s death she had done her research. (Which went without saying. Belle da Costa Greene always did her research. It was something of a point of pride with her.)

Grammercy, a collector devoted particularly to fifteenth-century printing, had purchased the original copy from an anonymous seller some ten years before, back when one could still get a decent price for a First Folio. The sale had been managed by Thomas B. Forman, a preeminent London dealer with whom Miss Greene had had some interaction in the past. He’d shown today, as a matter of fact. She could see him across the aisle, a little man in a well-cut coat who was pulling at his collar as though nervous. She wondered why, until she glanced a few seats to his right and saw the large figure of William Clement, a wealthy English collector, who was buried in his catalog and looking positively thunderous. Ah, of course—Clement had purchased the _De antidotis_ immediately after Grammercy’s death, snapping the copy up before any other buyer so much as had the chance to look at it, and for an undisclosed price. He had purchased it as unique, however, just as Forman had advertised and sold it as unique—and now this mysterious Mr. Bredon had dropped in from out of nowhere to prove otherwise.

“All the players in our little drama,” she murmured.

Wimsey made an enquiring noise.

She waved her silk handkerchief in the general direction of the two men. “Clement and Forman. Neither of them looks very happy. Do you suppose Clement means to bid? If the copy he’s just bought can’t be unique, then he’ll settle for having both the remaining copies?”

Wimsey shrugged as noncommittally before. She wasn’t fooled.

“Though that doesn’t explain Forman’s presence,” she said thoughtfully. “You think he wouldn’t show his face, if he was that embarrassed. He hasn’t bid on anything yet, and I’d have thought the _De antidotis_ well out of his price range. And furthermore—good Lord!” she exclaimed, adjusting her horn-rimmed spectacles. Wimsey looked startled. “Who on earth is that?”

He followed her gaze to a man at the door who in most other settings might have been called nondescript. In this company, he stuck out like a sore thumb; his clothes were _clearly_ purchased off the rack, and not at one of the better places; his expression was defensive; and he entered the room as Daniel must have the lion’s den.

Wimsey did not respond, but the sore thumb exchanged a look with him as glancing but as intent at the one Wimsey had exchanged with the Sotheby’s attendant. Miss Greene raised both her eyebrows as expressively as she knew how (which was very), but before she could comment, the auctioneer resumed his place, and the room fell silent once more.

Lot 31 went quickly, scarcely getting the time and attention it deserved, for it was a nice piece, but of course Miss da Costa Greene had been right. The whole room was waiting in tense expectation for Lot 32, and beside it they cared for little else.

A hush fell over the place, silence settling in against the rich carpets and dark wood. The door behind the platform slid open on well-oiled hinges to admit that same, severely good-looking attendant as before. Miss da Costa Greene admired a man who could wear fine clothes with such an air. He carried the coveted book with an attitude of respect well-leavened with competence. The audience leaned forward for a glimpse of the slim book, one of only two known copies in the world. Provided there weren’t other anonymous collectors with more of the printing sitting in their attic, of course. She’d have given a great deal to meet this Bredon and have a word with him about his dealers.

The attendant stood back from the prize. He raised his eyes to skim over the crowd, and Miss Greene did not think she imagined it when they lingered on the man behind her.

The auctioneer cleared his throat and said, “Lot 32, the Aldine _De antidotis_. Shall we begin at £400?”

They did begin there, but they hardly lingered for long. Bidding leapt up rapidly, sometimes by more than a hundred pounds at once, until it would have been difficult for any ignorant observer to guess that these same collectors had spent the last several years counting pennies.

She was stunned, several minutes in, when the dealer Forman offered his own bid. She could not see how recovering the duplicate would benefit him, and though he was well-respected in the field she knew his private means to be limited, so she could only assume he was there on behalf of some other collector.

Eventually the bidding stalled at a price well above that of any previous lot. The buyers paused, gathering their resources, perhaps reluctant to rejoin battle. Miss Greene had the winning bid and was content to wait as she considered her options and her employer’s resources.

Then the silence was broken by none other than Wimsey, who cleared his throat delicately and gave a nod, offering a bid for the first time that day.

And the race was on, though the field was by now considerably narrower. The bidding had become too rich for any but the most hard-headed and deep-pocketed of the collectors there. One by one, they all dropped out, until it was down to Miss da Costa Greene, Clement (whose face by now had bypassed deep irritation and gone straight to rage), Wimsey, and Forman. The little dealer looked even more nervous than he had before, as well he might at these prices.

Miss Greene knew precisely how freely she might spend, and after a sidelong glance at Wimsey she raised the bid by an astonishing £1,500 in one fell swoop. Her nerves had been hardened by long years at these auctions, and she found it no difficulty to keep calm even at these lofty heights. Even Wimsey raised an eyebrow at the price, though otherwise he looked as cool as she felt.

Not so with Forman. He was sweating profusely by then. Really, it was an embarrassment; the man should have known what he was getting into.

“Do I have any other offers?” the auctioneer enquired after several beats, his general air as unimpressed as ever, though even he must have felt some stirring of excitement.

The little, sweating Forman raised his hand—and the bid—once more.

Face thunderous, Clement made another offer, sending the price soaring still higher out of the range of most of the crowd. Forman countered, though it looked as though it caused him physical pain to do so.

The auctioneer looked to Miss Greene, who sat back in her seat with a sigh and waved a hand in dismissal. Then he turned to Wimsey, who oddly looked not at him, but at Forman, whose face increasingly showed his desperation; then to the stone-faced attendant, who gave Wimsey the slightest of meaningful nods.

Wimsey raised the bid by a full £2,000, and gasps went up around the room.

Clement made no move to reply; poor Forman looked ready to faint, but had clearly exceeded his limits; and the bidding closed at a sum that had not been seen since ’29. The tension in the room snapped as the assembly broke into spontaneous applause.

Wimsey, uncharacteristically, didn’t acknowledge this in any way. Instead he watched Forman from across the aisle, who in turn was watching the attendant gather the priceless volume and turn away from the crowd. He was still sweating, his face had gone from white to a sickly grey, and suddenly he let out a loud cry—startling everyone there—and leapt from his seat, dashing across the room.

The audience was frozen in its seats, with the notable exception of Wimsey and the sore thumb Miss Greene had noted earlier. They both rushed after Forman as he bore down upon the attendant, snatched the book from the man’s gloved hands, and proceeded to rip it right down the spine, then tear a handful of pages from what remained.

“No!” he cried, “you won’t have it!” The rest of what he said was drowned in his sobs as he continued to tear the priceless paper into shreds.

Wimsey took him calmly in a strong grip and turned to the sore thumb, his expression much more satisfied than it ought to have been, considering his prize had just been damaged beyond all recognition.

“He’s your man, Charles,” Wimsey said, ringing voice carrying to the far corners of the auction hall. “I’d stake more than my library on it, too.”

The sore thumb—Charles?—looked rather less uncomfortable in that company now that he had what was clearly his professional business in hand. He produced a set of handcuffs (Ah, a policeman. She might have known. He had that look about him.) and proceeded to arrest Forman for the murder of one Horace Grammercy.

Miss da Costa Greene rather wished she had someone to whom she could turn and say, “I told you so.”

Instead, she waited until the furor had died down. It was perhaps not the greatest sensation that room had ever seen—it had housed the sale of a pristine copy of _Paradise Lost_ not six years before, after all—but it was certainly one of the most satisfying. When the auctioneer announced the sale had closed early, to general discontent, she stood, rearranged her clothing, and made her way to the front of the room, where Wimsey remained after Forman’s unceremonious exit in the arms of the police.

“I did say so, didn’t I?” she said to him, for lack of anyone better.

He turned from his intent conversation with the good-looking attendant and the auctioneer to give her a quick, wry grin. “I suppose you did.”

“I’m very curious to know why, though,” she pressed, ignoring the auctioneer’s repeated attempts to get Wimsey’s attention.

“Why to which part of it?”

“Let’s start with why a respectable London book dealer would rip a manuscript to pieces in public,” she said, looking down with dismay at what remained of the second Aldine _De antidotis_. It cut her to the heart, truly it did. “It seems a little excessive if he just wanted to ensure the piece he sold as unique a decade ago was, in fact, unique. And he wasn’t just trying to prevent you from getting it—he was as set on bidding against me and Clement as he was against you.”

Wimsey’s eyes glinted at her. “The natural conclusion being…?”

“That he wanted to prevent anyone but himself from owning the second copy. He destroyed it rather than let you walk away with it. So there was something particular to this copy—?”

“Close.”

“Something that was worth Grammercy’s death. Something particular to this second copy, something that distinguished it from Grammercy’s—Clement’s—book?”

“You’re not working with all the data,” Wimsey said. “I’ll give you the running start I had. Grammercy spoke with a Viennese specialist two weeks before his death, and shortly thereafter he paid a rather angry visit to Forman’s London office. Forman did _not_ make any effort to purchase Grammercy’s copy when Clement did, back when it was thought to be the only copy.”

“And Forman himself arranged the sale of that copy to Grammercy ten years ago,” Miss Greene. “The gall of the man. The damned thing was a forgery, after all that?”

“Excellent!” Wimsey said happily. “Grammercy apparently learned of it not long before his death, did some nosing around—you see I’m not the only one—and discovered something about several of Forman’s high-profile sales had the slightest of smells, to put it delicately. He confronted Forman about it and got offed for his trouble.”

“And that?” she asked, looking at the pages at her feet.

“Another forgery, conceived and executed with the help of the Sotheby’s staff and the police, I hardly need say. I wasn’t absolutely certain about Forman's guilt, but someone had clearly forged the book. I was curious about what our murderer would do at the prospect of having his fake compared to the real article, if the fear of losing his reputation and livelihood had already been enough to drive him to murder. Clement was happy to help. He was about ready to commit a murder himself, after he learned the truth about what he’d bought as a unique piece. We agreed to force the murderer into the open, but I didn’t expect the results to be quite so public.”

“I should think not,” said the auctioneer, wiping his brow. He looked rattled, poor man, as well he might. This was not the sort of service Sotheby’s was accustomed to provide. “I hardly need tell you we would never have agreed if we had known—and _this_ man—“ He jabbed a finger inelegantly at the attendant, who had maintained a serene countenance throughout the proceedings.

Wimsey looked pleased. “Ah, yes. My man, Bunter. I needed a plant. I was in Kent, searching Grammercy’s estate, so someone had to keep an eye on things in case Forman had a go at the book before the sale.”

“Which he did,” said Mr. Bunter tranquilly. “As I informed your lordship, he showed up the day before yesterday and was very insistent that he be allowed to examine the book before the sale. Which I refused, naturally.”

“Trying to see how it compared to his forgery, no doubt,” Wimsey said, “and see just how deep a hole he’d dug himself.”

The auctioneer was regarding Bunter with something like misery. “So you won’t be staying on, then?” He turned to Wimsey. “We have a major sale next month, you see, and I really don’t know if we can do without him. Where I’m going to find another knowledgeable attendant by then—“

“Hear that, Bunter?” Wimsey said with pride. “And you said you’d never be able to cram up in time. Just that natural modesty again. Bunter knows everything,” he confided to Miss Greene, who listened indulgently. “Go on and test him. Ask him how the Emperor Shomu is associated with the Shosu-in near Nara.”

“No, no,” said the bewildered auctioneer, “it’s Venetian manuscripts, nothing Japanese in the catalog.”

“Book-sellers never read enough,” Wimsey said in disgust. “No, I’m afraid I can’t spare him any longer.”

“I should say not, my lord,” Bunter said, a hint of distress peeping through his phlegmatic mask. “I need to recover the remainder of the sale items, but then perhaps your lordship will permit me to see to your tie.”

Wimsey peered down at the offending neckwear. “What’s the matter with it, Bunter? I hope you don’t think I can’t manage without you for a few days while we’re on a case. I thought I did rather well on my own.”

“I'm sure you did, my lord,” said Mr. Bunter, as though it pained him. “I’ll be back shortly, if you’ll excuse me.” And he disappeared impressively through the door behind the platform, followed by a despondent-looking auctioneer.

“The rest of the sale?” Miss Greene enquired, her mind having seized on the salient point. “So I was right about the catalog being to your taste.”

“Well, I couldn’t let the _De antidotis_ go up as a single lot, could I? Needed to generate the publicity to get all the major buyers here, if I wanted to be sure I had my man.”

She waved the catalog gently in his face. “So the other items on here—the ones I’ve bought on behalf of my employer—“

“Ah, yes,” Wimsey said. He had the decency to look at least a little guilty. “All mine, just put up for show, so our forger didn’t get _too_ suspicious. You won’t be charged, of course.”

She tapped the catalog against her carefully-reddened lips and smiled at him. “Oh, I don’t think so. We’ve been looking for the Pliny in particular, you see. My employer will be thrilled I’ve managed it at last.”

“Miss Greene—“

“I’ve bought them publicly at Sotheby’s, of all places. You don’t really think you can back out of the sale now? No, my employer will be very pleased indeed with these. It’s been a pleasure as always, Lord Peter. Congratulations on your case.”

“Really, Miss Greene—“

She ignored him, putting her head up and sailing serenely through the milling crowd for the exit. A 1469 _Historia Naturalis_ , good gracious. 

Not bad, for a day’s work.

**Author's Note:**

> Belle da Costa Greene [was real](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_da_Costa_Greene), [as it happens](http://www.washingtonlife.com/2010/02/07/power-source-bella-da-costa-greene/). She was also [pretty ridiculously amazing](http://blogs.princeton.edu/rarebooks/2010/08/a_look_at_belle_decosta_greene.html). Lord Peter would almost certainly have known who she was, and I like to think they would have gotten on like a house on fire.


End file.
